Finnish music, Reviews

The Micragirls: Wild Girl Walk

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The Micragirls: Wild Girl Walk (Bone Voyage, 2009)

Just fantastic! I knew I was going to buy this, I knew I was going to like this, but I had no idea that this would be so freakin’ marvellous.  Before Wild Girl Walk I felt that they were a bit one dimensional garage rock band. Always able to get the party going on and being a whole lot of fun to listen to, but still nothing to be truly excited about.  Then came the first preview from the new album in form of the single Summer’s Gone. It blew me away and send shockwaves through my spine. The Micragirls with pop sensibility. Whoah! I’m instantly in love.

Now after hearing the whole album, my love has  grown to sky high levels. I was a little bit afraid that Summer’s Gone might be one-off attempt on softer sounds, but thankfully I was wrong and there’s a lot more flavours, colours and variation on Wild Girl Walk than on the debut. Old fans don’t need to worry either. The garage rock side is still going strong and there’s several killer rock tunes like I Know, Electric Chair Twist and Girl Go Crazy. Stunning 60’s girl band influenced pop moments are in the minority, but they are utterly wonderful and give you some breathing space on this rock’n’roll rocket. It’s probably a good thing that the pop moments are in the minority. If I would get a whole record of stuff that sound like Summer’s Gone, Story of Two and the Wanda Jackson cover Funnel Of Love, I probably would go insane. It would be too much love,  I couldn’t take it, I would have to pass it on to someone else. Wild Girl Walk is a fantastic rock’n’roll record.

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The Micragirls Website
The Micragirls at myspace

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The Munsons: Go With The Flow

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The Munsons: Go With The Flow (Mufarang, 2009)

The Munsons are two finnish guys Tokela and Tommi Viksten. They spent so much time listening to old country boogie, rockabilly, hillbilly and honky tonk vinyls that they wanted to start making their own versions of the songs. Things moved on and soon they found themselves in Woodstock, recording a cover album at Levon Helm’s studio. The result of the recordings is this beautiful album Go With The Flow. I’m not familiar with all the originals, but most of them are old country and rockabilly favourites. The odd couple being Rough Boy (ZZ Top) and Go With The Flow (The Queens of The Stone Age). Rough Boy is especially a gorgeous version and reveals the beautiful core of the song that the 80’s production partly destroyed in the original.  Other favourites are There’ll Never Be Anyone Else But You, Home Of The Blues, Go With The Flow and Let Me Love You. The guitars sound great and the harmonies sound even greater, but I still keep one heart hidden until they deliver an album full of The Munsons originals.

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Music From The North Country – The Jayhawks Anthology

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The Jayhawks: Music From The North Country – The Jayhawks Anthology (American, 2009)

The Jayhawks is one of my own favourite bands. They were a giant landmark on my way from pop music to country music. Obviously I didn’t abandon pop music. Bands like The Jayhawks and Wilco just made me realize that country music might have something to offer as well. I’m grateful for that. After all, where would I be without country music. Who knows, I might even be happy. I might be singing pretty pop songs on the beach instead of squeezing my self pity into an empty whiskey bottle in a dark room. Hurray for country music.

There’s two versions of The Jayhawks Anthology. There’s the 1 CD version that only contains the best of part and then there’s this bigger version that contains an additional disc of rarities and a DVD. Mine is obviously the bigger version, because the interesting part for The Jayhawks fans are the rarities. I already have all the albums so the greatest hits disc wasn’t a must, but it’s a welcome reminder about the fact that The Jayhawks created some of the finest music of the last 20 years.  The so-called alternative country just doesn’t get any better than this. Gary Louris and Mark Olson were both fantastic songwriters and the singing. Oh my, oh my. It’s just heavenly. Those voices just fit together so perfectly. It’s a great collection of their finest songs. I couldn’t have done a better job with the selection. Well I could come up with a few that should be there, but I wouldn’t have the heart to remove any of the ones that made the cut.  A perfect introduction for the ones that don’t know the band.

The rarities is the important part for a long time fan. It has some great demos like Olson’s Mission On 2nd and Louris’  I Can Make It On My Own. B-sides and compilation tracks are also most welcome. Victoria Williams cover Lights and Darling Today from Blown Away soundtrack are the standout songs for me. The big dump rocker Get The Load Out is also a great one. Heck, that would be more suited for KISS than The Jayhawks. Enjoyable stuff nevertheless. Rarities dics also contains several early versions of their (should-be) famous songs. It’s quite interesting to see how the songs have evolved from the early days, but I’m not sure do I really need them. They are great as well, but the finished jewels would be  enough for me.

CD 1:
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CD 2:
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Overall:
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The Jayhawks Website
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